Prangley Valley

Max Beerbohm

[The decorated initial appears in the original text. George P. Landow scanned and formatted the text, adding illustrations and links to material on this site.]

Here for all his aesthete's pose, which emphasizes the artifice involved in this particular instance of natural beauty, Beerbohm sounds much like Ruskin, Morris, and modern environmentalists.

ll men kill the thing they
love" was the keynote of a fine
ballad which every one has
read. And, indeed, it does
seem that in all love, be it love
for animate or inanimate things, there is an
ogre-ish element; humanity, in its egoism, being unable to appreciate anything, unless it
have also power to destroy it. The comparative indifference with which the ancients regarded landscape might be traced to their
lack of tools for its destruction. We, in this
century, suffer from no such lack, and
our love of landscape is quite unbounded.
We have water-towers wherewith to cap our
little hills, railway-trains to send along the
ridges of our valleys, coal-shafts to sink
through ground where, for many centuries,
forest have been growing. We have factories, too, for the marges of wide rivers, texts
about pills and soaps for the enamelling of
meads, and telegraph-wires for the threading
of air, and tall, black chimneys for all
horizons. Month in, month out, with
tears blinding our eyes, we raise tombs
of brick and mortar for the decent
burial of any scenery that may still be lying
exposed. A little while, and English landscape will have become the theme of antiquarians, and we shall be listening to learned
lectures on scenology and gaping at dried
specimens of the trees, grasses, and curious
flowers that were once quite common in our
Counties.

I am glad that there are, in the meantime,
still some fragments of country not built over.
I make the most of them, whenever I am at
leisure. I think that Prangley Valley is the
fragment that most fascinates me; partly because it is so utterly sequestered, yet so near
to London. From Kew Gardens one may
reach it in less than half an hour^s walking,
but the way to it lies through such devious and
narrow lanes, that the wheel of no scorcher
scars it, and it is unimpressed by any Arrian
or Arriettian boot. Indeed, I have often
wondered how the "King's Sceptre," a
Jacobean inn which stands just above the Valley,
can thrive so finely on so little custom. John
Willet himself seemed not more prosperously
paunched than the keeper of this inn, and,
though I have never met any fellow-farer at
his door, my advent does not seem to flutter
him. The notion, that any human creature
should care to drink old ale from one of his
burnished tankards, or should admire the
Valley over which he has always lived, seems
to puzzle him rather, but not to excite him.
It is very pleasant to sit on the settle that
stands, in summer-time, across the lawn of his
sloping garden; pleasant to sit there, among
the hollyhocks and fuchsia-beds, and look
down upon the little, hollow Valley that is so
perfect in its way. I am afraid it is not a
grand or an uncomfortable piece of scenery.
It cannot lay claim to a single crag, peak, or
torrent. It suggests the artfulness, rather than
the forces, of Nature. Its charm is toy-like.
The stream that duly bisects it is so slight and
unasssuming that I have quite forgotten its
name. I remember that my innkeeper once
told me, with a touch of pride, that it was
a tributary of the Thames. Perhaps it is,
but it looks suspiciously like a riband. So
neat, so nicely matched one to another are
the poplar-trees on the opposite brow of the
Valley, that one fancies they must stand, as
in the nursery, on rounds of yellow wood,
and would topple at the touch. Among these
amusing trees there is one solitary tenement.
It is a kind of pavilion, built of grey stone
and crowned with a dome round which stand
gilded statuettes of the nine Muses. I know
not what happens in it now, but it is said to
have been designed by Sir Roland Hanning,
physician-in-ordinary to Queen Adelaide, and
used by him as a summer-house and library,
whenever he was in residence at Kew. Seen
from a distance, with the sun gleaming on its
grey and gilt, the pavilion has an absurd charm
of its own. Set just where it is, it makes, in
draughtsman's jargon, a pretty "spot" in the
whole scheme. One can hardly believe,
though, that any one but a marionette ever
lived there. Indeed, were it not for the sheep,
which are browsing on the slope and are obviously real, and for their shepherd, who is
not at all like Noah, one would imagine that
the whole Valley was but a large, expensive
toy. A trim, demure prospect, unambitous,
unspoilt! The strange brightness of its verdure and the correctness of its miniature proportions make it seem, in the best sense of the
word, artificial. If it had not been designed
and executed with intense care, it is certainly
the luckiest of flukes. Greater it might be,
but not better. I feel that, for what it is, it
is quite perfect. So it soothes me, and I am
fond of it.

I am not a railway company, nor a builder,
nor a County Councillor. I had no direct
means of ruining Prangley Valley. But I
have written my encomium of it, and now it
is likely to be infested by all the readers of
this book and by most of their friends. I
have given away my poor Valley. The prospector will soon be prospecting it, and across
its dear turf the trippers will soon be tripping.
In sheer wantonness, I have ruined my poor
Valley. Certainly, all true love has its ogreish element.
[139-43]